


Dial Tone

by saltstreets



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Footy Ficathon, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3507914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's certainly not endearing at all. It's four in the morning and Philipp flat-out refuses to budge from his pedestal of righteous indignation at being dragged into his vice-captain’s drunken emotional epiphanies.</p><p>Or, 'Dammit Bastian, I'm a football captain not a help line'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dial Tone

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely based on [this](http://thesilverwitch.livejournal.com/33981.html?thread=909245#t909245) prompt in the Footy Ficathon! I ended up way more Lahm-centric because I am not-so-secretly in love with him. Sorry OP! Hope you enjoy anyways.
> 
> I didn’t have any particular match in mind when I wrote this. It’s a match that Bayern won. You know that match? The match that Bayern won? Yeah? Good.
> 
> It is also meant to be a humorous story with humorous characterisations, so please don’t take anything too seriously. :)

 

 

Vaguely based on this prompt in the Footie Ficathon! I was scrolling through older prompts and just had to write something because it made me laugh so hard. I ended up way more Lahm-centric because I am not-so-secretly completely and utterly in love with him. Sorry OP! Hope you enjoy anyway.

I didn’t have any particular match in mind when I wrote this. It’s a match that Bayern won. You know that match? The match that Bayern won? Yeah? Good.

It is also meant to be a humorous story with humorous characterisations, so please don’t take anything too seriously. :)

 

 

Philipp’s phone buzzes loudly and it’s four in the morning but he’s awake in seconds. It’s impossible for Philipp to sleep through his phone going off. He can’t afford to miss anything. What if one of his team mates had gotten in a car crash? What if the Eurozone had collapsed? What if Thomas had been the one who collapsed it?

He squints at the screen, dreading the worst. Bastian’s name is flashing there in time with the ring, along with a blurry selfie of the man with what looks suspiciously like Podolski’s eyebrows and forehead rising from the bottom of the picture.

“Lahm; what’s happening.” Philipp picks up and practically barks into the receiver. He swears to God, if there’s been some kind of post-match celebratory party and Manuel is stuck in a vat of Nutella _again_ he’s going to book a one-way ticket to the Maldives and just retire from _everything_.

“Fips, I have a problem.”

“I sincerely hope,” Philipp says dryly, “that when you say ‘I have a problem’, you do not mean ‘we have a problem’, as in ‘we the team of Bayern Munich have a problem’, and I hope that if you _do_ mean the latter, it has nothing to do with-”

“No, no,” Bastian hurriedly cuts him off before Philipp can go off on a rant about _last time._ He sounds more than just a little intoxicated and about equally as distressed. “Fips. Fips, it’s a me problem. It’s a personal problem.”

There’s a silence during which Philipp manages to radiate suspicion through his mobile. “...a personal problem.”

“Yes.”

Another silence. Then Philipp says, world-weary as only he can be, “I have a feeling as though you’re going to tell me this whether I want to hear it or not.”

“You’re my captain, Fips, I have to come to you for emotional advice!”

Philipp rolls his eyes and resists the urge to shout something like _I’M ON INJURY LEAVE YOU TWIT_. “Alright, what is it.”

“So after Pep’s post-game ‘don’t let this victory make you too happy’ speech, some of us went to a couple of bars and stuff, just as a sort of ‘yeah we won’ type of thing, and I was, um, texting Lukas and he, Fips, he started flirting with me like, kind of a lot!” Bastian always gets dramatic when he drinks, and his voice has gone up about half an octave in urgency.

Philipp waits impatiently for him to continue, but he seems to have nothing more to say. “Bastian. You said you had a personal problem?”

“Well, yeah, I just told you!”

Philipp tries to piece together what’s being communicated here. Then it clicks and his face contorts itself into an expression of utter incredulity. It’s really a shame that there’s no one to capture the moment because his eyebrows, impressive on a normal day, truly rise to new levels of entirely fed up with all antics, shenanigans, and the like. “Bastian,” Philipp says slowly, struggling to keep his tone level so that he doesn’t end up screaming at his vice-captain for being the prepubescent _child_ that he apparently is, “do you mean to tell me that Lukas Podolski, your close personal friend Lukas Podolski, flirted with you over SMS and that this somehow appeared to you to be in ANY WAY OUT OF THE ORDINARY?” Okay, so his voice may have risen to heights normally reserved for trying to coral the team into running during practice when all they wanted to do was kick about aimlessly and make daisy chains but the occasion really calls for it.

Bastian sounds honestly confused. “Um, yes? I mean, we’re obviously friends-” -Philipp can’t prevent an astounded scoff from escaping here- “-okay, we’re _best_ friends, but I mean, he was really laying it on, Fips! I can forward you the messages if you want so you can see for yourself!”

“NO,” Philipp hastily whisper-shouts, “don’t even think about it. God, I can’t believe this. Is this real? Is this some kind of divine punishment? For what? 2010? Have I not already paid enough by having to deal with these idiots every day of my life!? Do I have to start sending Michael Ballack flower arrangements? Paint his house? Mow his lawn?”

“...you okay there captain?” Bastian asks tentatively, as if _Philipp_ is the one behaving in an irrational and unbelievable manner.

Philipp takes a calming breath. This was getting ridiculous. “Okay Bastian. We’re going to work through this together, because if you haven’t figured it out on your own by now I doubt you ever will. Did you ask Lukas about what he was doing?”

“Um, yeah. I was like ‘dude wait did you just flirt with me?’ and he- well, actually, he also seemed kinda surprised that I’d asked, now I mention it. Like he says, um, hang on...” there’s a static-filled moment as Bastian fumbles with his phone on the other end. “Okay, he says ‘have been for the past ten years, but thanks for noticing’.” Bastian sounds distressed. “Poldi’s my main man but what the hell? Does he like me, I mean romantically like me? ‘Cos he means flirting romantically? With the intent of starting a romance? _Romance?_ Fips? Fips are you there?”

Philipp is trying to resist the urge to smack his skull into the headboard of his bed. This is just embarrassing. And not only because Bastian seems to have drunk about half a brewery and subsequently reverted into a thirteen year old trying to figure out emotions for the first time. “Yeah, Bastian, no shit Lukas has been flirting with you for the past ten years- you’ve been flirting with _him_ for the past ten years! What is wrong with you!? Are you not self-aware!?”

Bastian is quiet for a moment. “Huh,” he says slowly, and Philipp can practically see the puzzle falling into place in his head, pieces drifting slowly down through the intoxicated fog. “You don’t say.”

“Bastian Schweinsteiger,” says Philipp heavily, putting as much emphasis into his words as humanly possible, “at this point the only person on this planet who hadn’t realised that fact was _you_ , and it seems to have taken copious amounts of alcohol for you to discover that two men hanging all over each other for ten goddamn years, gazing into each others’ eyes and being utterly incapable of keeping their hands to themselves _might just_ be something a bit more serious than friendship! The media noticed, Bastian! The German media! Do you not remember 2006!? I REMEMBER 2006 BASTIAN!”

Bastian winces over the receiver. “Ouch, might want to keep it down there. I don’t think I needed to be on the phone with you to have heard that.”

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE THE MOST OBLIVIOUS EXCUSE FOR A PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER THAT I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED,” Philipp yells. “For the sake of the team with which I have recently entrusted you I hope that this frankly unbelievable inattention to your own surroundings only applies to your own mind rather than your general environment! NOW GO SORT OUT YOUR IDIOCY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“But Fips! I don’t know what to do! I panicked slightly and told him I was too drunk to text anymore and he hasn’t responded!”

“Oh, for the love of- you’ve been waltzing around with each other for a decade practically scattering hearts and embarrassing photos whenever you’re both on international duty and now you tell me don’t know what to say to him? Figure it out!” Philipp glares at the phone with enough vitriol that Bastian can actually sense his annoyance from on the other end of the line. “And you’d better have this sorted by the next UEFA qualifying match. I might not be captain anymore but I don’t want to see a slump in the team just because you’ve had your lovesick head so far up your ass you can see the stars out of your own goddamn mouth! If you can’t manage to have an adult conversation and get to the bottom of this I _will_ call up Jogi and I _will_ invoke every last inch of my not inconsiderable influence as the man who captained Germany to ultimate victory in order get you stripped of the armband and have it given to Thomas Müller! Then you can go to _him_ for your ‘emotional advice’ and know true chaos!”

The threat is a dire one. Philipp really is pulling out all the stops. But then again, the hour is very late indeed. So late in fact that it could be categorised by some as ‘early’.

Bastian is thoughtful. Philipp knows this because he says it, “I’m really thinking about this,” in the way that he always begins narrating his inner monologues after having a few too many. Philipp sighs, but it’s a sigh more resigned to his sorry fate than outraged at this point. “Look. Talk to Lukas, but for god’s sake do it when you’re sober. I don’t even want to think about how much you’ve had to drink that’s managed to force you over ten years of solid denial and sheer stupidity, but it’s probably not going to make for a useful conversation. Or even one that you’ll remember twelve hours from now. Make yourself a note- no, actually, I don’t trust you to leave yourself anything coherent right now so _I_ will send you a text in the morning. Like the caring and concerned captain that I am.”

“You’re the best, Fips, you’ll win the Ballon d’Or this year for sure.”

“That was in January and they already gave it to Ronaldo, but thanks for the sentiment.” Philipp says, trying not to sound too affectionate. He’s annoyed about this, dammit. It’s certainly not endearing at all that Bastian’s somehow managed to misinterpret his own obvious head-over-heels love that’s been both the darling and the demon of the national team for the past near-decade. Nope. He flat-out refuses to budge from his pedestal of righteous indignation at being dragged into his vice-captain’s drunken emotional epiphanies.

“Well,” Bastian says philosophically, “there’s always next year. Or,” his voice suddenly takes on an excited air, “we could steal it from him, as a sort of- of- team-building exercise!”

The worst part is, Pep might not even reject the suggestion out of hand. Philipp has a terrible vision of Xabi coaching the team on the layout of Cristiano Ronaldo’s mansion and then Franck in a black ski-mask, hissing orders through a walkie-talkie as they stealth crawl across marbled floors or whatever. And Robert _definitely_ owns a white windowless van that could be used as both a base of operations and getaway car.

It’s a premonition of nightmare proportions. Philipp doesn’t know what kind of security CR7 might have protecting his castle, but he _does_ know that whatever it was, Thomas would manage to trip it, bringing hell and maybe like, Sergio Ramos with a bat down upon them.

“I forbid you from burglarising Cristiano Ronaldo,” he tells Bastian severely. “Under no circumstances are you to do this thing, nor may you share the idea with anyone else.”

Bastian sighs dejectedly but obediently. “Yeah, alright. Thanks for the words though. Good night, captain.”

“Good _night_ , Bastian.” Philipp says, and hangs up firmly.

Next to him, Claudia rolls over sleepily and half-opens her eyes. “Trouble in paradise?”

Philipp groans and lets himself fall back onto the pillow. “Sometimes,” he says, with great emotion, “I wish I’d become something restful, like a baker.”

“I would have married a baker,” Claudia reassures him in the factual, beatific tones of the barely-awake, and promptly goes back to sleep. One of her many great qualities is the ability to sleep through a small war, which is useful for times like these.

Philipp stares at the ceiling for approximately two minutes, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation in general bearing down upon him. “It’s these heteronormative societal lenses,” he says aloud into the darkness, “that are severely hindering our collective ability to fully understand our own emotional turmoil. Were we as a society more open-minded in our inner analysis of our relationships with others, I guarantee we’d all sleep better at night. Not in least because _some of us_ wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout of said emotional turmoil.”

He’s not speaking to anyone in particular. Claudia hadn’t even stirred, just smiled slightly as though her subconscious had recognised that her husband was struggling with the universe as per usual. But despite the lack of audience it’s comforting to know that the greater structure of society is to blame for the debacle, and that he has successfully identified and proposed a solution for the issue. Philipp Lahm, eins. Human civilisation, null. Danke, bitte.

Philipp makes a mental note to send an irritated text to Bastian later reminding him to unscramble his brains and do something productive, and makes a second note to go on a really nice vacation this year.

He’s just managing to relax back into the pillow and begin to doze when his phone goes off. Again.

He doesn’t have to look at the screen to know who’s calling because the ring tone is personalised for this particular number as the theme from _Jaws._ Philipp grits his teeth and answers it.

“Lahm; you’d better be on fire or already dead. I’m not in the mood for anything less dire.”

“Um, hi captain.” Thomas’s voice crackles through the speaker, sounding more sheepish than a tuxedo made of wool. “I’ve got a bit of an issue here. We were out drinking after the match and things went a bit...um...Manu’s got stuck in this, well, do you remember what happened last time? It’s different than last time! But you might need to see it for yourself.” He pauses. “It’s actually pretty hilarious.” In the background Philipp can hear laughter and what sounds like Juan panicking.

He resists the urge to let fly a bloodcurdling scream and drops his head to his hands instead. “I can’t believe she would have married a baker,” he mutters, dejectedly, ignoring Thomas’ questioning noise at the statement. “This is the worst. I’m on injury leave!”

“Yeeeaah, sorry about that. But we’re really going to need your technical expertise here- hey! I can just facetime you in! You can stay in bed and shout instructions! Gimme a sec...”

Philipp doesn’t even manage a response, just looks up at the ceiling despairingly. It was going to be a long night.

 

 

 

Just realised that now both of the football fics I’ve written have been telephone conversations. Next time I will branch out, promise! Next time there will be no more telephones. Next time will be Gӧtzeus expressed entirely via emojis and hashtags.

**Author's Note:**

> Just realised that now both of the football fics I’ve written have been telephone conversations. Next time I will branch out, promise! Next time there will be no more telephones. Next time will be Gӧtzeus expressed entirely via emojis and hashtags.


End file.
